It’s like going to buy a Volkswagen and finding out the BMW is cheaper.

Well, maybe not that severe, but the ailing economy contributed to a price oddity this week in the beef market, causing wholesale prices of higher-grade beef to drop below cuts of lesser quality.“It’s an unusual event,” said Shayle Shagam, a livestock, poultry and dairy analyst at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The cause of the price anomaly is multifaceted, Shagam said. At a time when choice cattle supplies have increased because of decreases in costs to raise them, the economic downturn has impacted demand for what the USDA labels “choice” beef compared to the lower quality “select” beef.

“Individual consumers are simply reaching for the select rather than choice,” said Chris Crawford, a senior livestock analyst for EHedger LLC, a Chicago-based commodities brokerage firm.

The bad economy has shoppers trying to save money by purchasing cheaper beef at the grocery store, Shagam said. Consumers are also eating out less, which is driving down demand for choice beef from restaurants, a primary consumer of higher-grade meat.

The restaurant industry has been hit hard by the current recession. A recent report by the National Restaurant Association showed that the industry continues to struggle, with operators reporting negative same-store sales for the ninth consecutive month in February. Same-store sales are those at restaurants open for at least a year.

Roger Drake, a spokesman for Morton’s Restaurant Group Inc., which owns Morton’s The Steakhouse, said the poor economy has affected sales by reducing business travel and conventions.

“Eighty percent of our business is on expense accounts,” he said.

The Chicago-based restaurant chain, which operates 81 steakhouses worldwide, has seen a reduction in Monday-through-Thursday traffic as discretionary business spending has dipped, Drake said.

However, waning demand hasn’t been the sole cause of the price inversion. The cost of choice beef has also decreased because the supply has increased.

More cattle have been graded choice this year compared with last year because plummeting grain prices have made it less expensive to give cattle feed that will produce higher quality meat, Shagam said.

Last year corn and soybean futures hit all-time highs trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, but at the close of trade Wednesday, corn was 53 percent off its peak price and soybeans were 37 percent lower than their record.

When the USDA grades beef as prime, choice, select or standard, it is judging the tenderness, juiciness and flavor of a particular cut. This can be measured by grading the quality of marbling, or flecks of fat, in the beef, which is improved by feeding the cattle more corn and soybeans.

The USDA reported Tuesday that 100-pound packages of select were valued at 28 cents higher than packages of choice.

Although consumers won’t see choice beef priced lower than select at their local butcher or supermarket, prices have eased in the past six months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that the average retail price of beef dropped 2 percent in March compared with February and has fallen 4 percent since October.

However, as the winter chill subsides and grills are pulled out of storage, demand for choice is likely to increase and the normal pricing relationship between choice and select will resume, Crawford said.